Ashen Stars
by Nightmarescribe
Summary: Just post "Babel", Razer isn't thinking too clearly, but he tries to take stock of his muddled feelings about what went down between him and Aya. During "Dark Matter", he gains a new perspective on them.
1. Chapter 1

_Mouth full of Ash_

The remaining crew of the Interceptor powered up the engines and got underway once more, leaving the methane planet behind them. Jordan had already left the bridge, and Kilowog followed him soon after setting a course back to Ysmault, the scene of the last battle with the Manhunters, and... _Aya_. Razer stayed at his console, too tired and numb to go to his room just yet. Moving displays attracted his wandering attention; his eyes registered the name of the planet as they left the system; _Fluer'Beos, territory of the Syndicate of_... His eyes closed of their own accord, as he could no longer bring himself to care.

He sat with his head bowed in the light of the stars speeding by, and it finally hit home with Razer, like a burning stone in the pit of his stomach. Aya was gone. Really _gone_, and it was _his fault_. Ever since she'd blasted them away from the Red Lantern armada, he and the others had been on the go, non-stop action and survival, and no time to think. And now... now there was time, and he still didn't want to think. His gut soured with crippling stress, guilt, and remorse. He hadn't meant it like that when he said he'd shut down emotions; it was just an offhand comment in a moment of distraction... He just wanted to help her get through the battle at hand... not abandon her to that... icy contempt. What had he done to her?

His eyes burned, but he refused to shed any tears. He was pathetic enough, without weeping for a... mere machine. _Oh, Aya..._ He got up and exited the ship from the lower ramp, and sat on the upper hull just ahead of the Engine bubble. The pulsing Green glow that shone over his shoulders reminded him of her. Every part of the ship reminded him of her presence, even his cramped quarters. _'...Let no one else decide your fate...'_ Confusion and recriminations swirled around his mind and he'd get no rest anyway until he fought his way through them. Here, he could still see the stars, and not risk the others asking dangerous questions, as they might if he stayed on the bridge.

He was a coward and a cad, that much was certain. But how had it come to this? His memory cast back to his visit to Volkreg. Was it only days ago? Less? His footsteps in that dusty ruin that was once his home had brought him full circle. It was the last place he had seen his Ilana alive. The place where he found that she was gone; _The Errant Storm_, striking again. And, of course, Aya had followed him, full circle once again. It was, after a fashion, also the place he'd first seen the AI in a humanoid form, literally possessing the avatar of his wife. He'd seen then how willful she was. _'What you want is irrelevant'_, she'd said as she heartlessly expelled him from his welcomed torment.

How had he not seen that she wore Ilana's face, only scarcely altered? When Queen Aga'po pointed it out, he'd been angry, yes, but not _revolted,_ as he'd been when Aya returned with a twisted mockery of that same visage on a mangled Manhunter. He'd accepted her usage of Ilana's form, and gradually had become fond of the AI. When his fear and need to see her safe drove him back to Zamaron, the meaning of the Violet portal by which he'd saved Aya left him conflicted and guilty. Under the stars of Volkreg he had sworn to love his wife eternally. How had his faithless heart been stolen by a... computer?

When her lambent body had faded from his desperate grasp, he was shattered. Physically he was whole, her sacrifice made sure of that, but his heart and soul left raw and bleeding. Losing his first love drove him to accept the curse of the Red ring. Losing this fragile new connection to Aya made him wish he could delete himself. He laughed bitterly to himself. Her resurrection was so easy, for her. As soon as she crawled aboard like a misshapen golem, his crewmates accepted her easily. To them, she was just a mind who occasionally had a body. It didn't matter to them whether it was the Interceptor, her regular form, or... that halting pile of junk. It mattered to him, though. As attracted as he was to her ordinarily, he could overlook their fundamental organic/artificial differences... but now with that grotesque face burned into his mind's eye, he could no longer ignore them.

He'd felt the same searing agony as when he lost Ilana, but to Aya it was like stubbing a toe; a momentary inconvenience, easy rectified by a swap of components. She put him on the spot then, wanting to pick up right where they left off, when he was still reeling from the shock of losing her, and from the manner in which she'd returned. There was a fleeting moment when he was going to swallow his pain and give her the answers she was looking for... but it was too much, too soon, _too raw!_ Instead, he'd given in to his weakness, and inability to risk such heartache again. He wanted... no, he _needed_ some distance; time to lick his wounds and put things in perspective. Time, she didn't seem to want to give him.

So the only thing he could think of in that burst of existential panic was to tell her that no, he didn't love her. She'd back off then, he'd thought, give him time to heal, cope, then he'd fumble an apology, and maybe they could start again later on a better footing. If she didn't love him, she wouldn't risk herself to save him, _again_. Charitably, he could excuse the lie as meaning to protect her. Never again would she be nearly destroyed for the sake of a worthless being like himself. But deep in his heart, he knew that the one he was really protecting was himself, from ever feeling that emotional destruction again. But he hadn't considered the pain he was causing her...

He'd never been very good at expressing his affections aloud. He looked down at the hand that gave Aya the rambler rose. Back in his old life, he used to give such blossoms to Ilana. She pretended not to like them, and she would frown at him. They were an aggressive weed; seeking out precious moisture that their war-torn world needed to devote to beast fodder, fiber bolls, or medicinal plants. Later he would see her setting the blooms in a tiny glass of scarce drinking water, because they were a gift from him. She told him not to bother, and that his time was better spent killing the vines. He'd laughed, and told her he was a hunter born, and every rose he gave her was a trophy from a rambler vine that had succumbed to his newly learned farming skills. After that, she only smiled when she received them.

He remembered offering flowers, and having them cradled in two very different sets of hands. Unlike Ilana, Aya had no animus towards the rose; she told him it was beautiful. _You are beautiful_, he thought, as her inherent pull drew him nearer. He'd always been better at demonstrating how he felt. He looked deep in her glowing eyes, and leaned in, intending to _show_ her his feelings with a kiss... and that damned interruption from Jordan! He couldn't help but think that maybe things wouldn't have gone so wrong if that moment had turned out differently.

He hadn't meant his lie to be unbearable to her, or even to be the end of matters between them. He just felt things were going too fast, and if they went back to being friends, they both might grow into a more mature relationship. But it was too late now to salvage anything like that. Maybe even too late to save her. He stared past the stars, until he caught himself nodding off from weariness. With nothing new to ponder, he reentered the Interceptor, starting in surprise when he saw Jordan sitting at the table, waiting for him.

"The sensors said you were out there, kid," the human said quietly. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Razer stood stiffly still, his head turned away from the pilot. _I can't even look you in the eye, what makes you think I can talk to you about my feelings? _"No, thank you" he said hoarsely. "I appreciate your concern, though."

Hal stood up, and stretched, trying to muffle a yawn with one fist. "Okay, Razer. I just thought I'd make the offer. We _will_ speak later, though, just... not today."

Razer nodded his acknowledgement, still frozen in place. When Hal went into his room, Razer opened up a medicine cabinet, and looked longingly at the supply of sleeping pills. Surely, just one, or two, wouldn't hurt... Firmly, he closed it, _no_. He earned this suffering; the least he could do is endure it like a man.

He went to his room and when the dim lighting shrouded him, his attention was drawn back to his right hand. The Red ring was glowing brightly, flaring crimson light in the small chamber. He shook his head with a humorless grimace, and then collapsed onto his pallet.

The ring was powered by hate, and rage. It seemed that _self_-hate worked just as well.

_-tbc_

* * *

**Notes: (My Writing Jam - Elo ****_"Time"_****)**

** Remember in ST:TNG when Data was testing the aphorism that "a watched kettle never boils"? In his tests, however, it always began to boil at the same amount of time according to his internal chronometers, so he asked Cmdr. Riker about it. Riker said, 'Most people don't have internal chronometers, try turning yours off'. So, what happened to Aya is like that, only with ****_Feels_****. People can't really turn off their feelings, but they can temporarily lie to themselves. And, as it turned out, the same was true for Aya, ****_and_**** Razer.**

***Name of the methane planet taken from the talkback thread on the toonzone {dot} net/dc animation forums for Babel, and massaged a bit. ****_The Errant Storm_**** refers to something in my gl:tas fanfic "Marking Rites".**


	2. Chapter 2

_Heart full of Stars_

Red construct dagger in hand, Razer grimly approached Aya, there before the beginning of all things. Blinking away tears of weakness, he cried out, dredging up every erg of outrage, fear, and self-loathing into the will to strike her down. The raised dagger dissolved in his hands before he could drive it home, with nothing in him that could sustain it. She turned about at his cry, calling his name before striking out at him._ Aya, no! Please, I didn't mean it... I could never hurt you... not again._ The blast from her dark hands burned through his armor like tissue, and seared into his chest. Grotz it hurt... but not as much as seeing her turn away had hurt. Mercifully, everything grew dim... Was this, finally, the welcome end of his pain...?

..._Aw,_ _nartz_. It wasn't, or at least not yet. He could feel himself drifting in this dark space, consciousness and pain both slipping slowly from him. Faintly he heard voices nearby. From the timbres, it seemed to be Jordan and Aya. Why hadn't the human helped him with his attack? Wasn't that the reason Hal so urgently summoned him? As he further faded, cold began to battle the pain, and with the cold and growing peace that stole over him, came visions... memories playing themselves out behind his eyes. He saw Aya in the spider prison nightmare again; but this time he could see that her freeing him wasn't an act of cruelty towards him, but of loyalty to her friends; the same loyalty she would gladly bestow on him. She never meant the things she'd done to cause him hurt, he knew that now.

Ilana used to chide him for being the center of his own universe, and never considering that sometimes he was just a bit player in someone else's life story. How he missed that gentle wisdom. Even now, could he dare admit to himself that his grief for her was fading, like the scabbed-over sorrows he felt for his parents? Now, as he was dying, he finally consigned Ilana's memory to his past, and embraced the aching regret that whatever he and Aya might have been... would never be. A great burden lift from his soul, and Razer lived again that sweet almost-moment on Volkreg, when he had given her the flower. If... he ever had a chance again, another moment to just hold her close, breathe her in and drown in the depths of her eyes, he _would _kiss Aya. He swore it to himself.

How much of a fool was he not to see she was a living soul? Did he believe his instincts were so perversely bad that a collection of metal plates, algorithms, and wires could capture his heart, no matter how pleasing the shape? There was something _real_ inside that component shell, and past the dulcet voice; a spirit that never gave up on him, even when he himself had. It irked him that he had to hear it from that marred Guardian hag before he could make himself truly believe it...

But wait, had he...? He had! It never registered before, but he had seen what must be her _true_ form, not once, but twice. In the spider prison when she led him to help the others, she was a spark of Green energy, emerald lightning crawling along the prison's circuits. He'd seen it again, that disastrous day when he'd denied her his love. Her _Spark_ fled the Manhunter's broken shell to inhabit her normal form again. A machine could never do something like that, not even the most sophisticated AI computer. She literally disembodied her essence out of any housing, into a free-acting force unconnected to any artificial device. What was that, if not life?

In all the time they tried to bring her back to her true self, his feelings towards her had only strengthened. He argued that she be treated with mercy, even as it seemed that she wrought destruction far exceeding anything that he blamed himself for. When they asked her to stop her crimes, she only told them they were wrong about what was happening. In the end, though, despite those numberless crimes, he could not bring himself to harm her; he would forgive her anything, even this slow, empty death.

He sensed someone nearby, and small hands took gentle hold of him. He opened his eyes with difficulty and saw Aya there, her eyes still disturbingly dark. However, there was something profoundly different in her expression. She looked... remorseful, and worried. "Aya..." he breathed.

"Yes, my love," she answered, sorrow evident in her voice. His heart leaped with painful joy in his chest, in response to those longed for words. He coughed, and his eyes slid shut again. They'd done it; they finally got through to her. _Now I can die in peace_, Razer thought, and once more knew the meaning of regret. Was it not a cosmic joke that one of them only spoke of their love when the other was nearly gone?

She talked of medicine, and he wished he could laugh, because no medicine could help him. He could smell his own charred flesh, and feel the organs inside him failing one by one. She put him into Hal's safeguarding and then pulled them away from the First Event, and back into their own time. When the structure shook as the rift shuddered closed, all he could think of was the feel of her love and protection around him. "You will be alright, Razer," she said. His hearing must be failing, because her voice no longer had that bitter edge to it. "You must be alright!"

He wept inside from the pain in her voice, when he felt something come over him. A light... a heat... energy... he could not put a name to what he was feeling, playing on his broken body and sinking deep inside to knit him back together. The cold and pain fled before the healing force, leaving him hale and well, if somewhat drafty from the rents in his armor. "I will be," he said, seeing her look as she should, "Now that you have come back to me."

Then all he could do is react, as his love's salvation changed nothing about the greater threat around them. She had only one way for her to stop the madness she created, and willful as ever she carried it out. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he registered changes in her manner of speaking. She sounded older, as if she'd gained a maturity that only pain and bitter experience could bring. He wished more than anything that he could know how those changes would affect things between them... but it was too late. Holding her in his arms, he lost her once more; she dissolved into stardust until there was nothing left to hold. He bowed his head, as all about them her Manhunters succumbed to the cursed virus.

He left Malthus with the Green Lanterns on their triumphant return to Oa. As they travelled, he listened as Jordan told him the truth he'd discovered about Aya's actions, and while it relieved some of the guilt he harbored for his inability to act, nothing could fill the hollow emptiness her absence created within him. Salaak gave him a Red battery the Corps confiscated from the attempted invasion, and with it, Razer restored his armor. It was easier than stealing a new one and it gave him grim amusement to think he once more possessed Atrocitus's personal battery.

When the Greens went to debrief with their masters, he took the time to catch his breath, alone. Surveying the state of his battered heart, he could see this day had truly changed him. The heavy burden of his guilt and grief for Ilana was gone from him now. Saint Walker told him there would come a time when this would happen, and he had angrily rejected the thought, in the mistaken belief that it would be a betrayal of her memory. He could see now that it was not, but only proof that he still lived on. Yet, to what end? He had no vengeance to drive him, no burning hate inside, and nothing to which to return. What was there for him to live for?

He gazed at the pale orange clouds floating by, and felt how his body still tingled from her healing, or perhaps the stardust still clung to him. He ached for Aya, but it didn't feel the same as the day he found Ilana had perished. There was no sense of finality to this ending. As if there was a chance... a _feeling_ as Aya had said, that she was out there somewhere, waiting for him to find her. He couldn't explain it, this feeling, but the more he dwelt on it, the stronger it became. This was not the end of their stories. It couldn't be.

He had a promise to himself to keep. His friends would want to go with him, but they had their duties. He had only one; finding Aya. She had repaired his broken heart, and brought him new life. He would spend whatever he had left of it in search of her, and _when_ he found her, he would never, ever let her go.

Now _that_ was something to live for!

_-fin_

* * *

**Notes: (My Writing Jam - Elo _"Time"_)**

This album about time travel just fit both parts of this story so well, from the robot girl near the beginning, the distopian middle, to the parting exhortations of _Holding Tight To Your Dreams_.

"...Look to the stars, for Hope burns bright!"


End file.
